Online Diary Journals

Creating Characters

Characters are one of the most important worthwhile that hook people into reading a written work. Some authors even vouch how familiar they are with their characters, talking about them like they are real people. For those who want to learn how they can make their characters come to life, there are certain guidelines that they can try the next time they write again.

A character’s features must complement one another.

A character’s profile must be close to that person’s counterpart in the real world as much as possible. Depending on the general impression that a character makes, everything that can be used to describe must make sense to the readers.

When it comes to traits, a character must be described in way that the readers can imagine. Using terms like friendly or charming is not enough, readers must be able to visualize how the character can be defined by such words.

Reveal every facet of a character’s personality

Each person is a mixture of both positive and negative characteristics and the same goes for fictional characters as well. Depicting them as realistically as possible gives the characters a certain depth that the readers can greatly relate to.

The writer must learn to uncover the reasons why certain traits, whether positive or negative, are manifested by character in the story. Any act of kindness or evilness must be accompanied by something that can enlighten the readers on why such acts are committed by the characters.

Dialogues must be used to define each character in a story

Dialogues are one sure way to bring out the traits that makes each character in a story unique. Each character should possess certain manners and manifest nuances that can define him or her as a person in the story. Moreover, the way a character delivers his lines is one avenue that the writer can use to paint a picture of that character. With the choice of words that they use and the manner by which the speak, readers must be able to distinguish which characters in a story are speaking in a dialogue.

Use real people as models for characters

It is not that hard to create a unique and easily distinguished character. Inspiration will come if a writer resorts to people who are very familiar to him. He can use his loved ones or closest friends in outlining a character’s personality.

Characters need not be an exact copy of their real-life counterpart. Instead, it’s better if characters come out as a combination of various traits based on the personalities of a variety of people.